Tuesday, July 28, 2015

For the Emperor (2015)

At each turn, it seems that the now infamously high quality
of the South Korean thriller is adding a new twist or new influence to spice
things up. Earlier this year I wrote about the strange genre bending of The Divine Move, but in the gangster
film For the Emperor one is going to
see a bit more cohesive – if not more excessive – film that blends various
gangster film styles into one. At its core, the film is most certainly a South
Korean thriller with plenty of subtle acting and sharp writing to go around. In
its execution, For the Emperor is
slightly more extreme as it blends in a bit of 60s/70s Japanese new action and
80s Hong Kong excess into the mix. The results are pretty impressive. For the
Emperor is a vicious ride filled with subtle striking performances and bursts
of side-stabbing violence. Genre fans will be pleased.

Lee Hwan (Lee Min-ki) had a promising career in baseball,
but fate was not kind to him and he quickly found himself at the end of his
rope, broke and out of a job when a match fixing scandal came to light. While
awaiting for a comeback, he finds himself working for a rather well suited loan
shark (Park Sung-woong) as an enforcer. His boss takes him under his wing and
he quickly rises through the ranks. However, his greed and power hunger make
him suspicious of his boss and a series of events suddenly make them bitter
rivals.

Walk softly and carry a big stick.

If you take the gangster aspects of the Korean thriller New World, place them on top of a Scarface style plot, and then slather it
in the violent upheaval of the A Better
Tomorrow films, then you are beginning to understand just how For the Emperor plays out. Never does
the film feel like a knock off of any of these films, but it simply samples
elements from each to build a modern tale of power corruption and the rise and
fall of a young man with big ambitions. So needless to say, the film treads
some pretty dark material. Plotting wise, For
the Emperor plays things fairly straight for the first two acts. Outside of
a bit of time jumping, it works its way along a subdued performance of Lee
Min-ki as our protagonist – not necessarily a hero as he tends to pursue most
of the wrong personality traits to fit that description – and we are introduced
to the world of big business gangsters. As a side note, Lee Hwan is not the
most upstanding of protagonists so don’t expect some sort of big turn of
redeeming qualities. You’re not going to get them. The film also utilizes some
generic secondary characters along the way, including a fiery romantic lead
that tends to be more of an excuse for nudity than a lot of character building,
but it’s the unique way that many of these characters interact that works.
Stellar performances are in abundance here and it makes every scene, whether it
might have worked or not, fascinating to watch within the context of the film.

However, when it comes to the third act, the film gets a bit
muddier. As the opening line suggests, in an odd almost prophetic way in the
film, there is a series of rapid fire twists to the plot that erupt out of the progressions.
Most work, thanks to some brilliant direction and acting, but it loses a lot of
steam in the meantime. It’s not that most of them don’t make sense in that sort of manner, but it takes away from of the sleek and deadly efficient
storytelling that is presented up until that point. It was expected there would
be at least one solid twist to the proceedings, but not the handful that show
up.

As bonus points to cover for the occasional flaws in the darker
presentation of characters or the overwhelming third act, For the Emperor has some striking action set pieces. The film might
retain some of the darker Hong Kong excess of violence (there is definitely some
bloodshed), but there is a remarkable art form to how it’s presented – which is
where some of the parallels to 60s Japanese ‘new action’ films come into play.
In particular, the opening sequence features a raid on a complex with a group
of killers armed with knives that is lit only by the flashlights they carry. It
carries a strong resemblance to a similar chaotic fight sequence in the
Japanese yakuza film Retaliation that
I reviewed not too long ago. It’s this sense of art to the brutality of the
film’s violence that carries some weight and impresses so much.

It's a cutting edge fight.

For the Emperor is
not quite a perfect film. It’s a bit darker and more genre classified to be the
true dramatic force that was New World, but those same excessive elements are
handled with notable artistic merit by director Park Sang-jun. The rather off
beat script is carried by his vision and the powerhouse performances of the
entire cast maks up for a lot of the flaws that bubble to the surface
as the story plays out. While some more discerning South Korean cinephiles
might find the film a bit underpar compared to the many classic thrillers that
have found their way here, but for the genre fans it’s a welcome bleak and
vicious twist on the standard.

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